POLITICAL HISTORY 



king's justice.^ This may have been a sitting of the county court or shire mote, 

 for Sir Henry Glanvil, who was present, said he had constantly attended the 

 county and hundred court for fifty years. 



It was in this reign that the persecution of the Jews in this county 

 began, in 1 144,=* with the story of St. WiUiam the Boy Martyr, which will be 

 found in the section on ecclesiastical history. It may be as well here to 

 say a few words as to the Jews in the county. They probably settled first at 

 Norwich in the time of the Conqueror. Moses, the Jew of Norwich, was a 

 man of great wealth and ability in the time of William Rufus, and left his 

 house in the parish of St. Edward to his son Abraham and he to his son Isaac, 

 from whom it was known as Isaac's Hall. It was probably a building of the 

 same type as the well-known 'Jew's House ' at Lincoln and Bury St. Edmunds, 

 and was escheated to King John. There are no traces of any ill-feeling 

 between the Jews and Christians till this accusation of 11 44 was made. As 

 the learned editors of St. IVil/iam of Norwich say, the myth of child cruci- 

 fixion had slept for over seven centuries, and it is to the disgrace of Norwich 

 that it was for the first time revived here. 



Henry II, ' son of the Empress,' was crowned in 1 1 54. In 1 1 58 he gave * 

 to the burgesses of Norwich their first existing charter, confirming to them 

 the privileges they then possessed. He had previously not only taken awav 

 from Stephen's natural son, William de Blois, the castle of Norwich, but 

 had also made Hugh Bigod resign all his castles, very wisely determining 

 to have no strongholds left in private hands to form the centres of future 

 troubles, though he confirmed to William de Blois his father's lands in 

 Norfolk and to Bigod his earldom and stewardship.* 



Bigod was later on made constable of Norwich Castle, but he seems to 

 have been incapable of remaining faithful to any one for any length of time, 

 for in 1 173, when Henry's son, tempted by the French king Louis, and 

 taking advantage of the unsettled state brought about by the murder of 

 Becket three years before, rose in rebellion, Hugh Bigod joined him. Having 

 been promised the castle and honour of Eye as a reward, he received a large 

 number of Flemings, brought over by the earl of Leicester, into his castle of 

 Framlingham. On the earl being beaten, however, he was shut up in the 

 castle there and had to pay a heavy ransom.^ 



In 1 174 the earl of Flanders sent over more men, who landed at Orwell. 

 Bigod again received them, marched to Norwich,* sacked the city, and took 

 the castle, which he garrisoned with Flemish and French. The castle is said 

 by Jordan Fantosme' to have been taken on this occasion through a ' Lorraine 

 traitor ' ; he explains the poor defence by saying that the Norwich men 

 * were for the most part weavers, and know not how to bear arms in knightly 

 wise,' but it is more probable that the Flemish, who had settled here in 

 Stephen's reign, helped their compatriots. This was the last of Hugh Bigod's 

 treasons. The king ^ took his castle at Walton in Suffolk, and, raising an 

 army at Bury, was coming to besiege Framlingham and Bungay, when Hugh 



' Blomefield, Hist. o/Norf. iii, 28, says 'sheriff.' 



' The date 1 137 in the Anglo-Sax. Chnn. is certainly an error. 



' Hudson, Records ofNorw. p. xv, et seq. 



* Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 214. ' Ibid. 291. ' Ibid. 



' Chronicles of Reikis of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I (Rolls Ser.), iii, 279. 



' Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 294. 



